And the New Room
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: "This room wasn't always here, you know." Decades after the defeat of Pure Evil, Jenkins speaks to another Librarian about the appearance of another room within the endless Library. (Future fic)


Asteria Stone stood with hands on her hips above the small form of her three-year-old daughter, who had fallen asleep on the floor of one of the many, _many_ rooms in the Library.

Tucking a stray tendril of her dark bronze hair behind one ear, sharp blue eyes eyed up the tapestry, following along the shining lines that wove in and out through each other, names gleaming in the lighting that had softened itself so as to not wake the small child. Short and shapely, Asteria had bred true to her family's genetics, which tended to throw small, tough, and entirely-too-smart-for-their-own-good individuals. She was only 5'3", and her brothers weren't doing much better at 5'5". She was used to being short, however; she'd grown up around tall people, like Rigel and Regulus Carsen, who both exceeded six feet in height, and their sister Vega, who was taller than they were by inches. However, being short and pretty worked to her advantage, because nobody really expected the little ones to know how to bar fight with the best of them, as all Stones were known to do. It was considered a familial rite of passage: you have to get in at least one good brawl before you can be called a fully-fledged adult, girls included.

Her original purpose for coming into the room was to retrieve Josephine, who had _again_ snuck out of her room after bedtime, but now she found herself contemplating the walls, as she sometimes did. The walls of this particular room were covered in a kind of tapestry, though it wasn't fabric, or rather, not _entirely_ fabric. The patterns and engravings appeared in the smooth wood as if they were entirely natural being there, yet to touch, they felt like fine silk instead of wood grain, a mystery all on its own. The names, each one etched in perfect, beautifully curling calligraphy, appeared in different colours, too. Green for the Librarians, silver for their Guardians, and black for those that were neither and for the children, still too young to be determined, though Amber's name was already taking on a silvery tint, and Alexander was starting to appear more green than black.

Lifting a hand, she lightly rubbed her thumb over an empty space beside Alexander and Josephine's names, a secretive smile pulling at her lips. James was going to _freak,_ she just knew it.

"This room wasn't always here, you know."

She hastily dropped her hand and turned around to see a tall, neatly dressed figure filling the doorway, soft lights gleaming off a head of silver-white hair. "Really? When did it show up?" Asteria asked curiously.

"Well, it _was_ a locked door for several months after Mr. Jones finally got up the nerve to ask Ms. Kroger to marry him," Jenkins explained, taking steps into the room to stand beside her, hands clasped behind him as he surveyed the shining walls. "It opened...let's see, before your aunt Thalia was born but after Leon arrived, I do believe. I imagine it was waiting for all three trees to grow, so to speak."

Asteria stepped forward, reaching out to trace her fingertips along the smooth surface of the wall once again; she started at her children's names, traced the line that stretched from them up to her and James, his name engraved in black, hers in green, then the one that led from her up to Clio Stone in rich green, then up to her grandparents' names, at the very top, having to stand on the very tips of her toes in order to reach.

 _Cassandra Stone  
_ _b. Jan 12th, 1989_

 _Jacob Stone  
_ _b. Jul 9th, 1983_

There was a strange fade in the wall beside their birth dates, indicating that at some point, there had been a death date for both of them, a date that was now erased. Nobody knew the reason, except for Jenkins, and whenever asked about it, he would only smile enigmatically and shake his head and sometimes murmur something about time travel always taking the long way around.

Asteria glanced over at the other names on the wall beside theirs. Flynn and Eve Carsen, Ezekiel and Cindi Jones. And also included on the wall, in the deep shining gold of a Caretaker, with a tie to every family: _Jenkins._ It made her smile, seeing his name included on the wall because she knew that the old knight was inwardly pleased that it was there, even though he'd never say it, calling it ridiculously sentimental drivel whenever pointed out.

She glanced over at Jenkins again, a smile on her lips. "You knew them very well, didn't you?" she asked, jerking her chin towards the names at the top of the tree. In another room two doors down, there were shelves upon shelves of books that chronicled the adventures of every Librarian and Guardian, dating all the way back to Charlene and Judson at the Library of Alexandria. Without a doubt, the books belonging to Jacob, Ezekiel, Cassandra, Flynn, and Eve were the most... _interesting_ ones to date. Her mother read them to her when she was a child, and now she read them to Josephine and Alexander, the greatest bedtime story saga _ever_. But just reading about them was very different than actually _being_ there to witness it in person.

He dipped his chin once. "Indeed. They came blundering into my very peaceful, quiet Annex, turned it into an absolute disaster area, made what few grey hairs I had left turn white, and generally made my life unpleasant," he answered with usual caustic wit, but then he glanced at the wall behind her shoulder once. The corners of his mouth twitched up, just a little. "And I had the occasionally dubious privilege of witnessing them grow from hapless rank amateurs to somewhat acceptable Librarians."

Grinning, she linked her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder, or rather, against his arm; she was nowhere near tall enough to reach his shoulders, even in her best heels. 'Somewhat acceptable' was high praise from Jenkins, the closest he came to actually complementing someone out loud. Hell, she hoped that when her own grandchildren saw her name on this wall one day, Jenkins would describe her as a somewhat acceptable Librarian.

The Caretaker stood for a moment, unmoving but pleased nonetheless, before saying, "I believe that young Miss Josephine ought to be returned to bed before her father notes her absence."

Asteria leaned down and carefully picked up her daughter, settling the warm weight of Josephine in one arm as they walked to the door; Jenkins held it open for her.

"May I ask, do you know why she was in here?" the Caretaker asked. Josephine was known for sneaking into rooms, but usually ones with books or artifacts, things that she could touch and play with. She was particularly fond of the Chupacabra's room, as the furry old beast would always give her extra pieces of jerky whenever she visited.

She smiled and stroked a stray curl of Josephine's hair back, which was the same rich, vivid red as Cassandra Stone's. The red hair was almost trademark for the women in their family. Asteria's own hair was the colour of old bronze rather than outright red, but Josephine's was a shiny new penny colour. "I think she was trying to tell the room where to put her new sibling's name," she replied with a smile, resting her free hand over her belly.

Jenkins' eyes rolled heavenward. "Oh, good Lord. I swear, at this rate, you'll have bred an army before the turn of the century," he sighed, but there was an unmistakable gleam of warmth in his eyes.

Asteria laughed softly, then stood up on her toes to kiss his cheek; even standing on her toes, though, he had to bend in order for her to reach. "Goodnight, Jenkins."

"Goodnight, Ms. Asteria."

As Jenkins walked away, heading in the direction of his lab, she watched him go for a moment, standing rooted in place. Elsewhere in the Library, she could hear the telltale clanking of sword blades clashing as Vega taught Amber Jones how to duel Excalibur, the fifth century sword an eternal companion to the granddaughter of his best friend. The Back Door crackled as Altair and Meissa returned from what might have been a date in Paris or possibly an artifact excavation in Egypt. Shouts of delight echoed up the corridor as an old gargoyle playfully chased the youngest Carsens, Logan and Stuart, from room to room. Asteria knew that if she went three rows down and two halls up, she would likely find her son Alexander sitting in the Reading Room, looking over his great-grandmother's journals and scribbling his own formulas for mathemagics in a well-battered notebook. Her husband James might be there with him, or he might be down three flights of stairs, sitting with his other brother-in-law Alphard and enjoying a beer kept cold in the Fountain of Youth.

Smiling, Asteria glanced back into the newest room of the Library, where three individual trees formed one entire family on curious walls, where soon she would see another daughter's name added. All the names on the wall were her family, regardless of what their last names were, would always be family, here in a Library that breathed magic into their lives and wove bonds between the people which lived within it, both their home and their anchor. She turned her gaze upwards to the words, engraved in beautiful, scrolling letters across the top of the doorframe:

 _Familia est quam Sanguis._

 _Family is more than Blood._


End file.
